|
CHAPTER
1
PART I
The Pilgrim
It has been said that “Common souls pay with what they do,
nobler souls with that which they are. And why? Because a profound
nature awakens in us by their actions and words, by their very looks and
manners. —Unknown
March 20, 1941, 0800 hours
In the spring of 1941, the Japanese army surged across the border
from
China
to extend their bloody campaign to all
of
Southeast Asia
. As war crept south, the French,
English, and Americans scattered throughout
Indochina
hastened to
Saigon
, where they boarded ocean liners bound for their homelands. Meanwhile,
the Japanese army massed on the outskirts of the city, poised for
another victorious assault. The city held its breath.
Andrew Waters pursued his father across a bustling wharf, still
wearing his boarding school uniform and clutching a bamboo flute. The
ship that loomed before him was a floating city—mammoth, with numerous
passenger decks and topped by two massive stacks that muddied the sky
with exhaust. It had been berthed at the inland port on a tributary of
the
Mekong
for a full week, but Andrew saw the
crew now scurrying to get underway.
The wharf trembled slightly, and he heard the rat-tat-tat of
gunfire over the sirens blaring from the center of the city.
Andrew’s father sported a tussore-silk suit of superlative cut
and a Panama hat tilted so the brim hid his right eye. His tall figure
marched purposefully towards the black-and-white behemoth, and his
normally long gait lengthened with noticeable desperation.
Andrew, who was nearly eighteen, paused and panted from an acute
nervy rush. He searched the sky for planes. They were still beyond his
field of vision, but the drone of bombers echoed through the cloud
cover. The rumble of explosions grew loud, and the air carried the faint
stench of sulfur.
He hurried on, jostling through a mélange of beings—Caucasians
dressed in fine western clothes (like his father), rich Chinese in their
silks, merchants in long-sleeved jackets, coolies wearing only tattered
shorts. Voices all around him shouted while the harsh twang of a
military band playing “Auld Lang Syne” vaulted above that unbridled
confusion of humanity.
Directly behind him trotted an aged wisp of a monk, who wore the
traditional orange robes and held a string of wooden prayer beads. Each
bead was the size of a marble and had the chalky gray coloring of
Mekong
silt. The monk’s thumb deliberately
ticked past each bead, one after another, like a timer counting down the
seconds. Behind the monk came the porters carrying four steamer trunks.
At the gangway, Andrew’s father told him to quickly make his
goodbye then sprinted up the ramp with the porters in tow.
Surrounded in a press of bodies, the youth reverently embraced the
monk. The old man wrapped his arms around Andrew and drew him nearer.
The monk’s breath tickled his neck, which helped to dissolves his
anxieties.
Using the native tongue of
South China
, he whispered, “Master, I’ll come
home as soon as I can.”
The old monk’s face contracted, as if Andrew had posed a
difficult question.
“Andrew, war and
time will whisk away everything that you love. This is our farewell.”
The youth wiped away a tear that broke free from his almond-shaped
eyes and slid down his amber-colored cheek.
“Master, I will
strive to apply everything you have taught me.”
“No, Andrew. You will forget my lessons. Such is the nature of
youth. But remember this—since you are American by birth, they will
surely draft you. So, on the battlefield, resist the hate that is born
from fear. Nurture only love in your heart, Andrew. To love all beings
is Buddha-like and transcends us from the world of pain, for love is the
highest manifestation of life. To experience love’s full bounty is
life’s only purpose, so tread the moral path before you and sacrifice
yourself to love. All else is folly, a dream of the ego.”
Baffled, Andrew replied, “Master, I do not understand about
sacrificing myself to love.”
The old monk’s eyes opened wide and his lips spread into a grin.
“Meditate on what I have said. Understanding will come when you
are ready.” He methodically bundled his string of beads into a ball
roughly the size and shape of a monkey’s skull and forced them into
Andrew’s left pants pocket. “Keep these beads to remind yourself of
our time together.”
The pressure against Andrew’s thigh felt awkward, and before the
monk pulled away, Andrew became distracted, thinking of how fortunate
this man was to be wise and compassionate in the midst of the impending
carnage. He realized it took impeccable courage to maintain one’s
morality during perilous times, courage that he himself did not possess.
He had always assumed he would live a quiet, studious and
spiritual life under this old monk’s guardianship, and eventually
become the old man who stood before him. That image was shattered when
war turned the world on its head. Now, all Andrew could think about was
getting on that ship and sailing to safety, if such a thing existed.
The ship’s whistle cut the air, long and terrible and loud
enough to be heard throughout the city. The monk pressed his hands
together in front of his forehead and bowed, silently, finally.
Another blast from the ship’s whistle sent Andrew running up the
gangway, leaving the earthy world of
South China
behind.
He joined his father on the first-class deck. Entombed in steel—
heavy riveted plates of metal underfoot that curved into walls—he
jammed together with the other passengers at the rail, peering down at
the apprehensive faces. Their body heat added to the stifling
temperature. Sweat dribbled down his neck, and he had to gasp to get
enough air.
Lines fell away, and the gangway was hauled aboard. Tugs pushed
the ship into the middle of the channel and withdrew, leaving the ship
to the whim of the current.
Andrew stared straight down at the dense, opaque surface of the
river. It reflected the cloudy sky, making the water seem gray rather
than the usual brown, yellowish streaks of oil running with the current.
The flat moving surface seemed strangely alive, carrying him along,
muscling him downstream, as if it were an overwhelming force whose
motives he could only guess at.
On the dock, Asian women held their infants over their heads for a
last look. Handkerchiefs waved. The band played on.
He saw the first planes against the darkening sky, droning above
the city. Explosions grew even louder, and from his perch on the
first-class deck, he saw sections of the city erupting. He turned
northeast towards his boarding school. Flames. That entire section of
the city was engulfed in fire, as if hell had opened its mouth to
swallow it whole.
“Clifford,” he whispered.
A searing stab of regret lodged in his chest. He had been forced
to abandon the object of his adolescent love, and he imagined himself
dashing through the chaotic streets to reach the boarding school. There
was still time, he thought. They could disappear into the forest. They
could live on, together. He wanted to perform that fatal act of love,
but he wondered if he could really muster the courage to defy his
father.
Reluctantly—at least, it felt that way to him—he climbed onto
the railing to dive overboard, because he realized the love he shared
with Clifford wasn’t a trifling adolescent crush at all but rather a
deep and consuming love. A love that had somehow been lost in the joys
of youth like water in dry sand, and was only now realized.
His father pulled him back, forcing him to stay and suffer what
felt like an unquenchable loss. Locked in his father’s embrace, he
entered a narrow canyon of desolation, knowing the days and hours and
minutes ahead would be heartbreaking, and that he might not be strong
enough to endure it.
The ship’s siren sounded three blasts for its farewell salute.
The engines throbbed, and propellers chewed the river. The noise swelled
to a din like the end of the world.
The passengers on deck could no longer hide their sorrow. Everyone
wept, not only those people parting but the onlookers as well. Even the
dockhands and porters shed tears.
The ship traveled downstream as the military band played “The
Star-Spangled Banner.”
To Andrew, the orange-robed figure crushed within the throng on
the dock seemed at odds with the fires raging across the city. He now
fully understood the monk’s words—that war would steal everything he
loved, that a way of life, their way of life, had perished. Pain flooded
his whole being, like that of a baby prematurely ripped from its
protective womb.
He pulled away from his father’s embrace and staggered farther
down the deck to cry without being seen. He positioned himself at the
rail, one arm folded around a steel support beam and his face pressed
against the hot metal.
People on the wharf
seemed to hesitate, then regretfully turned and scurried away. He
watched the smudge of orange, scarcely visible and standing at the edge
of the pier, utterly still, quiescent, until the harbor faded from view
and the land disappeared as well, slowly swallowed beneath the curve of
the earth.
|
